Rehabilitation
by lizinfected
Summary: One shot. They meet, for the first time in years, under a flickering alleyway streetlight. Love, and infamy, and pain. Who will be the first to speak?


**_This was written for username Ms.T, after I finished reading her_ Mad Love _comic. It was, in part, inspired by the introduction. I do not own any of this caaahrrraaazzzeehhh stuff. Enjoy!_**

He licked his lips, quickly. Drummed his fingers on his hip. Lit a cigar, inhaled once, ground it beneath his heel. She had never been late before. Then again, he had never been this early. A streetlight flickered above, coldly, and he remembered when the city had been his.  
What was wrong with his mind? Madness was home, so these unaccustomed calm waters, these clear skies, were unsettling at best. Terrifying at worst. Where was his joy? Something had gone terribly awry. Everyone- disappeared. For once the Joker was not smiling.

_The glass had exploded around her falling body like a burst of sunrise over the trees, drenched with red blood and pink neon reflections. Two thoughts chased each other in a single breathe, the space of a heartbeat. The first: _Catch her. _The second: _Batman. _And so of course, he pursued.  
Arkham's spidery gates didn't close behind him for another month. By that time, she had already been released. By night he spun and skipped through his usual antics; pouring vinegar in the cafeteria milk, switching papers and folders in the filing room. But during the day, when he played the rehabilitation farce, the bed became another bed behind his closed eyes. And he saw her in the darkness, her white neck arched and marked purple with his fingerprints._

Heels clattered in the thick, polluted mist, bringing with them a graceful silhouette. A black coat swished around her red-clad legs, opened just wide enough for him to see a black skirt pulled tightly over her round hips. The Joker's hand twitched, clenched tightly. Who would speak first? In the old days it would've been her, enthusiastic and shrill in his ears. But now she was four feet away and silently composed. No lock of hair escaped her knit cap. No sign of emotion pursed in her seriously-set lips, or shone in her luminous blue eyes.

_He'd seen the TV reports. All the interviews. "I've gone straight," she'd said. "I'm all done with loonies." The Batman had been lurking in the shadows, the Joker knew. Approving. Gloating. And then a new crime wave had hit. Millionaires robbed. Notorious criminals killed. Stage one, the Batman frustrated. Stage two- with the criminals disappearing- the Batman useless. All the Joker had has suspicions.  
His suspicious were usually correct. _

"So," the Joker said, tongue flitting across his teeth. "How'd ya do it, Harl?"

She continued to stare at him, blinking only once.

"How'd you become so _infamous, _huh? You were never _that _craaaazzzzyyy. How'd you handle it? How'd you _evade the Bat_?"

He'd unconsciously leaned forward. The Joker straightened up, took a calming breath, and slowly smiled.

"C'mon Harl, babe…cat got your tongue?"

"No," she said. Harley's voice rang out in the silence. "How'd I do it? Just look in a mirror. You taught me lotsa things. About the world. This city. About people, and myself. About independence. Freedom."

The Joker understood her words but couldn't hold onto them. He just heard her voice, little bells loud enough to make hairline cracks in his head.

_Her unconscious control on him at always been unsettling. Him, The Joker! The Clown Prince of Crime! The Macabre Master of Mirth! No one could sway his fevered brain and no one could threaten, even touch, his self preservation. Who was one insignificant woman, with barely enough wit to pull off a simple gag without him? Chattering teeth! But she had him on tether hooks. And the Joker wouldn't stand for such…behavior. He was in control. And he proved it constantly. A trickle of beautiful, shining blood at her mouth. Patches of blue sky and green, green grass on her forearms._

"Doctor Arkham found an envelope on his desk. Thousands of bucks, Harl. So did the schools."

She shrugged, and snickered.

"I found a good reason to kill." Harley's eyes twinkled mischievously and she laughed. Bells shattered the glass, and the Joker laughed too.

"Why'd you ask me here, Joker?" Harley raised an eyebrow. She'd never called him that before. He'd never heard her tone turn serious so quickly.  
The Joker shut his mouth. She was waiting expectantly, arms folded.

He opened his arms. "Harl…I need ya, kid." Something very serious had been brought to life from the depths of a pit, or a dark cavern, in this confession. Its shadow fell over him. Was it velvet? Or was it cold, drowning waves?

Harley walked up to him slowly, and he reached out to close his arms around her.

_"Why do you let him do this to you?" the Batman screamed. Harley's shirt was ripped, and her eye was bruised. The Batman held her tightly by the arm. She fought against him, trying desperately to reach the Joker, pinned under a wooden beam. Fire burned through carpet in the next room, stinging his nose._

"Puddin'!" she wailed. "Puddin'!"

Harley chocked on smoke, already half-unconscious from her earlier head injury. She collapsed, fell against the Bat's chest.

"You!" the masked-man said. He layed Harley gently on the ground. "You do this to her! Why? When she loves you so much. Even you can't be that much_ of a monster."_

The Joker laughed, and spit out a tooth. "Monster? Who's the one with the horns on his head?" He laughed again, which quickly turned into a blood-bubbling cough. "I do it…I do it…"

The Joker stared at Batman. The Batman stared back. Aside from the crackling of flames, it was quiet.

"I leave my marks on her to prove this is all real."

And then he laughed and laughed, only laughed harder as Harley stood up and swiped Batman in the head with a chair leg.

"I learned something important from you," she said. "How not to need anyone."

The Joker froze. He would kill her. She would walk away and he would kill her. Either her body would be warm against his or it would be cold. He'd drag her by the hair, push her onto the cement. Kill her….

Harley grabbed his chin and pressed her lips to his firmly.

"So that means this time," she whispered, breath on his face, "it's _my _decision_._" She kissed him hard again, moved her tongue inside his cheeks and against the puckered wounds there. Her own scars had healed, he felt. But not the others.

He pulled away from Harley, and her mouth was smeared with red. It looked to him as if she'd drank his blood. Felt that way too. He pushed off her coat with an inpatient flick of his wrists. Her red shirt was sleeveless. The Joker lifter her arm, ran his long fingers over the scars that were scattered there. So smooth. He turned her wrist to him and kissed the first, then the second. Harley closed her eyes, lips parting. Each scar was left with a red, smudged kiss-print. A longer scar stretched from the back of her neck, over her shoulder, and down to the crescent moon of her breast. Harley pressed herself to him, and he licked the scar, slowly.

Something cold and hard touched his neck. The Joker's eyes widened. He moved a hand into his pocket- empty.

"Play nice, puddin'," Harley murmured into his ear. She bit it, and drug the knife gently down his back. "And mommy will play nice too."

The Joker shivered.


End file.
